My Paper Route on Health Avenue – Dr. Ed Iannuccilli

My Paper Route on Health Avenue – Dr. Ed Iannuccilli

Among the many things that made my paper route so much fun was the street where I delivered the papers. Health Avenue in Providence, Rhode Island, was part of a trilogy with Wealth (my street) and Wisdom Avenues and harbored a cultural treasure of community. As the paperboy, I was part of it.

It was a conventional city street flanked by comfortably spaced bungalows and two or three- family homes whose doorways opened directly onto the sidewalks. There was a rare lawn and a few garages. On its only vacant lot, we could take on a role as a football or baseball player, or an Army commando.

Sturdy curbstones supported cement sidewalks, embedded at regular intervals with commemorative plates acknowledging the WPA workers who built them. My grandfather was one, and I still feel a sense of pride whenever I unexpectedly come across one of these plaques.

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 The sidewalks were dotted with rows of tall telephone poles shaped in the letter “T” and linked by sloping lines. Streetlights were suspended from the middle of the poles and were covered with round scalloped, swaying metal hats. They emitted a yellow haze which created dancing shadows on the street. Those lights became our summer evening clocks. A netless basketball rim was nailed onto a pole, one which also might be used as a goal in hide and seek.

Health Avenue was perpendicular to the main thoroughfare, Academy Avenue. Its beginning was bracketed by two imposing three-family houses and its end marked by two more that looked over and down the street. Cars and houses were never locked. There were no broken windows. Nothing dreadful ever happened, but something was always happening.

On snow days, the residents shoveled, making piles of snow that were an open invitation for climbing, tunneling, and walking atop their length. Narrow paths were cleared just enough to negotiate.

Everyone received the newspaper. There seemed no other choice, not that they would make one. I hustled through the route rather quickly for two reasons. I wanted to please my customers with an early delivery. And I wanted to spend more of my after-school time playing with friends.

I delivered the evening edition of The Providence Journal Bulletin every day after school, and in morning on Saturday and Sunday. I believe it was necessary, certainly for me, for a neighborhood kid to deliver the paper. It might be a pretty solitary activity, but in going from house to house, I got to know so much about my customers. I ran up the stairs with piston rod legs, tossed a folded paper, and even more quickly scooted back down. But when I entered the homes on collection days, I was involved.

I shared their common everyday lives. I learned their idiosyncrasies --- don’t throw the paper, place it gently on the front step, hit the door so I know it’s here, come in and put it on the table. Theirs was part of my identity.

Next week, you will learn more of those customers.

Dr. Ed Iannuccilli is the author of three popular memoirs, “Growing up Italian; Grandfather’s Fig Tree and Other Stories”, “What Ever Happened to Sunday Dinner” and “My Story Continues: From Neighborhood to Junior High.”  Learn more here.